BAY AREA DATELINES

Compiled from Examiner wire reports

Published
4:00 am PDT, Thursday, June 12, 1997

AH: Search suspended; 2 presumed drowned Pinole After more than a day of searching, the U.S. Coast Guard gave up hope of finding alive two men believed trapped aboard a barge that tipped over in San Pablo Bay.

Officials said the search will resume Thursday but instead of looking for survivors, they will try to recover the barge and the men's bodies.

The decision to change the focus of the search came Wednesday after divers were interviewed by officials with the Office of Emergency Services.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Aitkins said officials determined from the divers that there were no more air pockets in the barge.

Officials identified the men as Gregory Strak and Reginald Edwards. Their ages and hometowns were not available.

BART in hot water

over disabled access Oakland The Bay Area Rapid Transit system may have to pay damages to thousands of wheelchair users following a judge's ruling that its ticket machines are not accessible to the disabled.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled last week that the commuter rail service was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That act required transit systems to provide full access to the disabled by July 1993 at their most important and heavily used stations.

In her decision, Wilken said that BART's ticket machines are too high and its entrance gates are too narrow.

Wheelchair users currently need the help of a station agent to buy a ticket and enter the gates, said attorney Larry Paradis of Disability Rights Advocates.

Sikh kids get OK to wear knives at school

San Francisco A dispute over religious liberty and school safety has ended with an agreement by a Merced County school district to let Sikh children wear small, securely fastened ceremonial knives under their clothes, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday.

The case, which led to a 1994 federal appeals court ruling in the children's favor, was settled with a vote Tuesday of the Livingston Union school board, the ACLU said.

The knives, called kirpans, are worn by devout Khalsa Sikhs in sheaths under their clothes after baptism, one of five symbols of devotion to God.

Three children in the Cheema family, then aged 7, 8 and 10, were excluded from school in January 1994 after other students saw a kirpan under one boy's shirt and told a teacher.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, relying on a new federal law that strengthened protections for religious practices, ruled in September 1994 that the kirpans should be allowed if measures could be taken to protect other students.

OSHA backs state's

anti-toxics laws San Francisco The federal government has approved enforcement of California's anti-toxics law in the workplace but restricted suits against out-of-state manufacturers of toxic chemicals.

The decision by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, published in federal regulations last Friday, denied the business community what it wanted most: a ban on private lawsuits to enforce toxic warning requirements.

The state law, approved by the voters in 1986 as Proposition 65, requires warnings when workers, consumers or the general public are exposed to substances causing cancer or birth defects. The new federal regulations deal solely with workplace exposure.

The OSHA regulations largely approved an enforcement plan submitted by the state after a lawsuit by environmental groups and the state AFL-CIO. The plan included Proposition 65's provision allowing private citizens to sue to require toxic warnings when the state has not acted.

San Jose approves

airport expansion San Jose In what Silicon Valley leaders hail as an important decision to boost economic growth, the San Jose City Council overwhelmingly approved a controversial plan to expand the city's international airport.

The lone dissenter at Tuesday's City Council meeting was David Pandori, who represents many of the neighborhoods close to the airport. Residents of the neighborhoods had opposed airport expansion and turned out en masse at the meeting to voice concerns about increased noise and congestion.

The plan approved was an 11th-hour proposal by Mayor Susan Hammer, who unveiled her plan Monday in an attempt to mollify opponents. It includes limits on the number of gates and the amount of passenger terminal space expansion can include.

Jet aircraft flights are expected to increase by 57 percent over the next 13 years to meet a future projected demand of 17.6 million air travelers, up from 10 million last year.&lt;